Most of the sound-field settings ended up with a rather strong bass, much higher than that normally provided by AV receivers. Who does it right? Yamaha, Denon, Marantz on the one hand, with a more subdued subwoofer level, or Sony on the other hand, with one that’s at least six decibels higher? I brought down the bass level a little, but really, let your subwoofer’s capacity, your own taste and your neighbours’ complaints determine the optimum level for you. Stereo receivers are very easy to come by as it turns out. So easy to come by that I had to sift through results to figure out which would connect to my old Panasonic speakers as well as to my middle-of-the-line record player. And I didn’t want the price to stop me from making rent.

What you lose are largely creature comforts—things like HDMI inputs/outputs (and therefore HDMI ARC compatibility), Wi-Fi and Ethernet functionality, Alexa / Siri / Google integrations, preamp outs, subwoofer outs. Okay, maybe a lot of those aren’t creature comforts to a good deal of shoppers, but I don’t imagine the STR-DH190 was very high on their list to begin with. When Dolby & DTS encoded sound streams are detected**, automatically upscales to drive all channels including height.

Product highlights:

There are four HDMI inputs, all supporting all the good stuff you’d expect. According to the specs (Sony rarely skimps on specifications) they support up to 4K and UHD at up to 60Hz, HDR10, Hybrid Log-Gamma and Dolby Vision, 3D, Deep Colour, the BT.2020 colour space, and the all-important HDCP 2.2 copy protection system. There’s a single HDMI output. At this point, I decided to run the 20 to 20 kHz power sweep, regulating the output to 1% THD. This involves the analyzer at each frequency point, raising and lowering the input level until distortion equals 1%. I kept failing to get there at all frequencies with the amp shutting down or not getting to high enough distortion. Needing to play with the parameters a lot, I put a fan on top the amplifier heatsinks and kept playing around. Next thing I know, it shuts down but no longer powers up. The power LED lights up but the rest of the display does not. And after about 8 or so seconds, it shuts itself down. As for music, again the results were very strong so long as I remained within the capabilities of the receiver and used speakers suited to it. And switched the sound of stereo music to ‘Stereo’ or ‘Direct’ or to ‘Pure Direct’, rather than the silly ‘All Channel Stereo’ default. Also in ‘Sound Effect’ is a ‘Night Mode’, an ‘Equalizer’ (actually, bass and treble controls) for each channel pair, and ‘Calibration Type’ from which you can choose ‘Engineering’ (the default), ‘Front Ref’, ‘Full Flat’ or ‘Off’. This sets the reference which the auto EQ curves seek to approximate. ‘Front Ref’ is for those who like their front speaker sound relatively unprocessed and want the other speakers to conform, tonally, to them. ‘Engineering’ makes the sound match “the Sony listening room standard frequency characteristics”. (I got that from the online manual. The information you need is split between the printed one in the box and the online manual.) Finally, in ‘Sound Effect’ is a Pure Direct setting. Subwoofer line output: This feature makes it much easier for you to add more bass by connecting a powered subwoofer to your system—an appealing idea, considering that some of these amps aren’t powerful enough to produce much deep bass. In most cases, this is a full-range output, which means your speakers still get the same amount of bass if you connect a subwoofer, and that can cause smaller speakers to distort the sound. However, a couple of amps we tested incorporate a crossover that can filter the bass out of the main speakers for lower distortion and smoother, more even bass response.

Physical media seems the obvious solution here. Buy CDs or vinyl. (Yes, their production contributes to climate change, but some say streaming media has the same — if not higher — carbon footprint than physical media.) A reinforced frame and beam chassis design reduces transmitted vibration from speaker sound pressure for more focused, powerful sound. The STR-DH190 brings together your vinyl and digital music. The perfect match for any turntable, you can switch effortlessly between analogue and digital with simple BLUETOOTH® connectivity and connect to all your equipment.

Great stereo sound with Bluetooth® convenience

Easy to set/calibrate # of channels, distance, speaker type, & individually assignable cross-over frequency. Oh, and about that DVD player… home CD players, it seems, are somewhat more difficult to come by in 2022. DVD players can play CDs, though, and they’re pretty inexpensive. I went with this one to match the receiver.) Lowing our lofty standards good bit, the Sony STR-DH190 seems to be a good amplifier. It looks nice, has remote, multiple inputs, phono, etc. and produces a lot of power. It is certainly much better than a lot of Internet specials when it comes to amplifiers. What you pay for it gets you headphone amplifier and that is it. The value is therefore remarkable.

The receiver’s controls are very much streamlined, unlike some other options I’d found in my search. Here’s how you boot it up: Press the power button. Adjust the volume with the substantial-feeling knob labeled “volume.” Turn the input knob to match your input. And that’s it. True audiophiles might look for fine-tuning options. I just wanted something I could control without much thought. The stereo receiver has an incredibly clean output. Despite its relatively low price point, the stereo receiver has an incredibly clean output. The speakers I’m using are basically bottom-of-the-barrel; the fact that this receiver can make them sound dynamic and lush verges on miraculous. There’s even a setting called “pure effect” that shuts down all necessary lights on the stereo to provide a clearer listening experience. Can you cheat and go with four-ohm speakers if you already have them? We would never recommend that you do, of course. But if you must, then just be cautious with levels. The phono amplifier and transformer are positioned optimally to minimise interference from the magnetic field.You might also notice a “Pure Direct” button on the front of the device and the remote and wonder how it improves sound quality. Don’t get too excited—the only thing that it does is turn off the display lights “to suppress noise that affects sound quality”, and disable any EQ adjustments made to the bass and treble. This has been a feature on receivers for a long time now, and a hotly debated one. One handy feature that the receiver has is the ability to turn on from a paired Bluetooth device, like your phone, even if the receiver is in standby mode. Both STRZA5000ES & STRDH190 answer to same remote control commands; no easy way to separate other than leaving one receiver off. Rigid parts hold the heat sink in place, reducing transmitted vibration from speaker sound pressure. The STR-DH190 has four analog audio inputs and one output, for easy connection to your audio recording device and other audio equipment.

AppleTV 4K can pass thru Dolby 5.1 with Atmos as E-AC3 (meaning, the receiver will recognize and display the sound stream as Atmos), however, it cannot pass thru Dolby TrueHD7.1 with Atmos or any form of DTS or DTS-X to the receiver. Anything higher than Dolby5.1 is passed to the receiver as LCPM lossless capped at 7.1 channels with no height channel or object-based sound encoding. When you start up the receiver it presents a kind of basic user menu across the screen of your TV. This can overlay whatever video signal is being throughput, even UHD HDR BT.2020 stuff, and it can be invoked at any time with the ‘Home’ key. The four options are ‘Watch’, which lets you choose one of the four HDMI inputs, ‘Listen’, which lets you choose from Bluetooth, the FM tuner (there is no AM tuner) and SA/CD analogue or digital, ‘Easy Setup’ which invokes a settings wizard, the inappropriately-named ‘Sound Effect’, and ‘Speaker Settings’ which allows manual adjustments to speaker settings. Can automatically turn on receiver when Blu-Ray player powers on, but cannot turn on receiver when AppleTV powers on. There were some wrinkles with the HDMI equipment I used. Specifically, neither of my Beyonwiz PVRs would work with the HDMI input labelled BD/DVD. Both worked perfectly with the Game and Media Box inputs. The Beyonwiz T4 also worked with the SAT/CATV input, but while the picture came through from the T3 on that one, the sound wouldn’t. I tried different HDMI cables. Who knows what was going on there. The BD/DVD input worked fine with the Sony disc player (above) and my own selection of UHD and Blu-ray players. A useful button on the remote displays video and audio signal information on the screen, so you’ve got some information to work with.

And notably there is no support for networking at all, either Wi-Fi or Ethernet. However there is Bluetooth, which may be far more important for those seeking a receiver at this price point. It supports the AAC codec, so most Apple device users should get the best Bluetooth sound possible. It doesn’t support aptX, nor Sony’s LDAC.